Jewelry designers use a hand-held hammering device for designing, engraving and setting purposes. The hammer is adaptable to a number of purposes because, much like a conventional drill, it is designed to accept bits of various configurations and sizes. Some bits are flat at their extremities. These are generally used for hammering and setting purposes. For instance, in the course of "channel setting", a precious stone is placed in a channel or groove formed on malleable metal material. Portions of the surrounding metal are hammered against the precious stone and thus the stone is set. The width of the flat area of the bit can be varied to adapt to differing sizes of stones and/or channels. Another bit may be formed so that its extremity is pointed. This bit may be used to strike a piece of precious metal a multitude of times with its point to engrave a design onto the piece or to give the piece a unique grainy texture. These bits are made from metals that are obviously harder than the precious metals that they are used on.
There presently exists a bit that is formed to accommodate a diamond at its working end. The diamond is held into place by four tabs extruding from the bit and folded into the diamond, much like the manner a diamond is clasped and set on a ring. Because of the hardness of the diamond, and because the diamond tip is shaped to a sharp point, the result of hammering a surface of gold, for a example, with the diamond point is a unique, highly expensive-in-appearance texture that glistens and is known as "laser diamond brilliance". The drawback of this diamond-tipped bit is that after a certain amount of use, the diamond eventually loosens from its position because of the constant pressures exerted on the metal tabs. The loosened diamond significantly affects the quality and accuracy of the craftmanship performed on the jewelry. In some instances stress may cause a tab to break and render the bit unusable altogether.